Hi. I am baking a 12’ cake this weekend in a Wilton cake pan.  How much batter do I need? and how long do I cook it? Is it difficult to remove it from the pan in 1 piece?  any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

Hi Debbie,

Welcome!  A 12” by 2” high pan (I am assuming round) will require about 7.75 cups (a 12” pan will hold about 15.5 cups so it should be filled half full).  I always use Rose’s butter cake recipes from the wedding cake section of The Cake Bible and they turn out lovely—flat, they fill the pan, and unmold (use parchment, grease and flour for butter cakes) well.  Baking time will depend on your recipe.  I also find cake strips help the cake bake evenly and I use a flower nail to help the middle bake faster.  If you don’t have her books—see if you can get one from the library as she doesn’t scale the leavening up proportionately.  Good Luck!

Thanks Sherrie. The Cake Bible was one of my first baking books. It is practically threadbare! Great suggestion, but what do you mean concerning the scaling of the leavening? I am loving this website):

If you check out the wedding cake section of the book she has formulas for basic butter cakes—where she uses the Rose factor.  You can basically make any sized cake you want—but the leavening isn’t adjusted proportionately.  Rose explains it in the section so I won’t go into it here, but basically if you are working with a 9” cake recipe, you scale up the main ingredients proportionately to fit the 12” pan, but the leavening is scaled less—this is because the larger pan has a greater surface area and additional leavening weakens the structure, so less leavening (proportionately) helps give the cake more structure.  Take a look and if you have questions, check back and someone will be happy to respond

I have recently take some Wilton classes for decorating, and they always suggest using the bake even strips or parchment paper.  I find parchment paper works every time and the cake doesnt stick, but there are also wilton cake release sprays too

Sherrie, can you please explain how you position the flower nail in the middle of the pan?  This sounds interesting

Hi Sara,

Pour the batter into the pan then take the flower nail and place it in with the flat part on the bottom of the pan (pointy part up).  That’s it.

Thanks for the tip, Sherrie!  I shall certainly try that, but should I be using the flower nail with the bake even strips?  I usually use parchment paper anyway so I’m assuming I continue to use that but insert the flower nail.